


Tunnel Vision

by literati42



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Brotherly Bonding, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Mental Health Issues, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 17:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11719074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literati42/pseuds/literati42
Summary: Batfam week prompt 3: Wayne Gala. Tim is feeling the anxiety that comes with being a protector of the city, and his siblings step in to help.





	Tunnel Vision

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted as part of the Batfam week 2017 on tumblr as Literati42. I am slowly getting my backlog of stories moved over here, so look for many postings of old stories in the next several days!

Day of the Wayne Gala fundraiser for Gotham Orphanage, 5:30 AM.

            I groan, finding colorful things to call my alarm. I don’t say them, of course, that would take far too much effort. Glancing at the clock, I realize I got exactly 29 minutes of sleep between the late night patrol and the even later night laying awake recounting every moment of the previous day and calculating every potential moment everything could have gone wrong. It didn’t, this time, but it could. The unanalyzed life is not worth living, right? I roll out, hating my feet for touching the cold floor and the floor for being so cold. Nothing good happens before noon. Ever.

 

Day of the Wayne Gala fundraiser for Gotham Orphanage, 6:01 AM.

            Cold shower + (scorching coffee x 2) = me, almost awake enough to face the day. It is Saturday, the Gala is at noon, so I have to adjust my earlier statement. Nothing good may happen before noon, but nothing good will happen at noon today either. It is an early one, set outside in the awful bright sun. I pour cereal into the bowl and debate eating it with coffee instead of milk, but Alfred is just around the corner, and I can’t take the lecture in my current state. I eat the cereal dry instead.

Day of the Wayne Gala fundraiser for Gotham Orphanage, 7:05 AM.

            I fell asleep with my cereal half eaten and had to cover with by running off. Now I’m in the Batcave. Training, focusing the energy in my body will chase away the thoughts. I love the way fighting feels, the power and control in the way I use my body. My movements are fluid, and for a while, for a short while, everything fades to black. My mind empties of anything but the next best move. At some point, Damian is there in front of me. He jumps in. I pick up my bow staff, and he grabs a wooden practice sword. He does not ask, just begins to fight with me. The sharp pains of getting hit do not detract from the peace that comes with movement.

            After a while, we have to stop because complete control over my body is a lie. If I had complete control, I would not need to stop to catch my breathe or drink water. My face is flush with the exercise. The kid is a pretty useful practice partner, in the rare moments, his mouth stays shut.

 

Day of the Wayne Gala fundraiser for Gotham Orphanage, 9:00 AM.

            I begin going over every detail of the last case. It feels easy. It feels incomplete. So, I go back over every detail. I turn over every rock, again, twice. I log every detail in the computer, frowning. This is wrong, and I know it. “Hey Tim,” Dick leans his arm on the back of my chair. “Isn’t that case wrapped? I thought you and Bruce tied a ribbon on that one yesterday.” My eyes are still scanning the words as he speaks and I give him something between a nod and a shrug.

            “There’s something missing.”

Dick clicks his tongue behind me, “I know with how things end up going, secret society of owl lovers, random appearances by Hush, and the…the Joker, it’s easy to start looking for signs in the smallest cases. But babybird, sometimes a drug ring is just a drug ring.”

“And that perspective is how all the people you mentioned get the drop on us.” My words come out sharper than I mean, but he is leaning into my airspace, and I can’t focus like that. I hear Dick step back, and I don’t glance up. I really don’t want to see his expression. When he leaves, I do stop, rubbing my stinging eyes. I sit back and thanks to Dick’s interruption, the thoughts that spun around my head all last night return with painful clarity.

I should be doing more. There is always more to do. How can we go to a Gala and pretend like throwing money around will ever be enough to help this city? How can we sleep on Egyptian sheets and sit down to dinner at the long mahogany table that is more expensive than the apartments people in Hell’s Kitchen live in? How can I stop when I know what is going on out there? I remember hearing a story one time about rescuers pulling people out of a river. They just kept pulling people out of the river as fast and as often as they can, but there is a problem up the river, and people fall in faster than they can rescue. People drown because they can’t pull them out as fast as they are falling in.

Suddenly the weight is pressing, and I can’t breathe. I run out of the Batcave before anyone can see me.

  
Day of the Wayne Gala fundraiser for Gotham Orphanage, 10:34 AM

            I am sitting on the floor beside my bed, the black-out shades choking out only the barest slivers of light through the window when I hear a knock at the door. “Father insisted I have to tell you to get ready. However, if you would rather I am certain you won’t be missed.” I hear Damian’s retreating footsteps and press my hands into my eyes. I can’t do it today.

 

Day of the Wayne Gala fundraiser for Gotham Orphanage, 10:47 AM

            The lock jiggles, and I turn in time to see the door come open, with Damian standing there, lock pick in hand and arms crossed. I watch his eyes flit from the curtains to my hair and then to my clothes, the same ones from our sparring earlier. “I will tell Father you have decided to be more of a disappointment than usual.”

            “Yeah, do that,” I reply. Why do I never learn to watch my mouth? He stops and turns, slowly. He tilts his head a bit like his dog does when he is confused.

            “What’s wrong with you? Beyond the usual I mean.”

            “Go away, Damian.”

            He unsurprisingly does the exact opposite. He walks further into my room until he is standing in front of me, hands on his hips. “You didn’t insult me.”

            “What?”

            “You called me Damian, not hellspawn or demon child.” He narrowed his eyes, “And you just told me to go away, without any banter.” His eyes trace up and down me. “Did I injury you severally when I was trouncing you earlier? Because Alfred will never believe I did not intend to if…”

            “I’m fine. I just want to rest today, now go away.”

            I see Damian look from me to the door and back. Good, I can see him, already half way out the door in his mind. Yet, instead, he crouches down. “This is a Dick issue?”

            “A…what?”

            “A…psychiatric problem?”

            “Psychiatric?”

            I can see Damian getting frustrated, “Are you having emotions?”

            I laugh then, and it is a hideous sound even to my ears, completely off and breathy. Damian cringes. I curse quietly as the sound threatens to bubble up again and morph into something worse. I swallow the heaviness in my throat. “Is it a poison or toxin of some kind?”

            “I am just thinking,” I reply. When I see his skepticism, I glare, “I know what you’re going to say ‘is thinking that painful for you, Drake?”

            “I wasn’t going to say that,” Damian said. He stared at me for a split second more and then a determined look crossed his face. He straightened up and walked to the window. He threw open the curtain. I cringe as the light violates my eyes. “I know what this is,” he says with complete assurance, “Todd calls this…wallowing.”

“I am not wallowing…”

“You are, and there is only one thing to me done.” He walks over, and the little brat kicks me squarely in the leg. “Get up, and I stop.” I jump up, rubbing my leg, but he is running from the room before I can retaliate. He turns back at the door. “If you are not ready in the next 10 minutes, the consequences will be dire.”

That’s when I realize that my frustration at Damian lifted some of the weight off my chest.

 

Day of the Wayne Gala fundraiser for Gotham Orphanage, 11:15 AM

            “Come on, Tim, we can’t be late to our own Gala!” Dick’s voice rings up the stairs to me. I didn’t get ready in 10 minutes like the brat said, but I did listen to him and get up, so I am not sure this counts as a victory. I look in the mirror, adjusting my tie even though it’s already perfectly straight. I hate going out like this, mask-less. It feels both raw, like an exposed nerve, and fake, but Damian helped me at least kick the heaviness. I would thank him if he weren't already so self-righteous. I frown once more at the mirror. Without the mask, there is nothing hiding the black smudges the bags under my eyes make. I poke at one of them.

            “Luckily for you, you have that Wayne family good looks to cover for those bags.” I turn to see Dick leaning on my door frame. He comes over the fix my tie, which was already perfect. I swear he puts it askew on purpose. “Dami said you were, and I quote, ‘wallowing in a pit of despair and pathetic-ness.'” I rolled my eyes. “If you ever need to talk…”

            “I don’t.”

            “But if you ever did,” Dick ignores my snapping for a second time that day. “I love you, baby brother.” I shrug his hand off my shoulder, but I can’t ignore that another measure of heaviness peeled back at his words.

 

At the Wayne Gala fundraiser for Gotham Orphanage, 3:11 PM

            The Gala is set outside, and the weather could not be more perfect if Bruce ordered it up. The sun hits the flowers the Wayne deco crew used to turn this park into a purple and blue garden. The tables are laid with fine white clothes and crystal dishes. It all has an incredibly high dollar feel. The staff did a fine job, actually.

            Of course, I finished admiring it ages ago, and we are still here. The speeches are over, the food is eaten, and now people are milling around being rich. Elbow rubbing. I lean my elbow on the table and try not to think about how much crime is going on, just outside the pretty shiny place we’ve carved out here. My eyes trace across the room, just in case of threats and I spot Cass. My sister is lovely, in a black dress that left her shoulders bare, and a black gem necklace that once belonged to Martha Wayne. I frown. She stands there with her hands pressed together looking at a group, most of them her age. That’s when I realize that all the young people are smiling and nodding politely to Cass, but giving her space.

            The smile stays on her face, but even from here I can see it has left her eyes.

            I push back my chair and walk over. Sometimes, when the moment strikes, and I get hit with anxiety and heaviness, I forget to see other problems. I forget to look at what is happening with my siblings. Tunnel vision, the thing that can kill you in the field. I’m good at avoiding it out there, at considering every possibility and evaluating all the players in the field. But here, on the chess board/minefield of a Wayne Gala? Sometimes I forget. I tap her elbow, and she turns to look at me. “I thought there would be dancing.”

            I glance over at the orchestra, playing a mellow background tune.

            “There is dancing, Cass. We just haven’t started it yet,” I smile, and she gives me a real smile in return. I pull her out and we begin dancing. She has been practicing, and I realize it must have been for this event. Cass never got a “normal” childhood, and a part of her has a deep insatiable lust for life. The orchestra has noticed us, they begin playing louder. I smile at her, my sister and she smiles back. And for a few moments, I let the problems of the rest of the city fade. And I solve one problem, here.

 

After, _finally_ , after Wayne Gala fundraiser for Gotham Orphanage, 7:14 PM

            I pull off my tie and toss it on the bed as I walk into my room.

            “So, wallowing Timber?”

            I’m in fighting stance at once, whirling to see Jason skulking in the shadows like a lunatic. “What is your problem?”

            “I asked, are you still wallowing?” he comes over and looks me up and down.

            “Do you three have a newsletter I’m unaware of?”

            “No, we have a collie that carries messages. ‘What is it, girl? Timmy’s in trouble? Timmy fell down a well of his own invention?’” I roll my eyes and flop onto the bed so I can pull off my shoes. Jason follows and takes the seat beside me.

            “So, talk.”

            “Jay, I’m fine. Don’t you have to get back? Who knows what felonies Roy and Kori are committing in your absence.”

            “Obviously I would love to be a part of any felonies, but right now,” Jason is serious, I see the look in his eyes. “Babybird.” He sits shoulder to shoulder with me and gives me a nudge. “What got into your head.”

            I am tired, and Jason is Jason. He’s the closest to me of any member of the family. There are times when he is the only one who gets it. And he always does get it. I remember the moment Joker had us both, and I believed Jason was turning on me. I remember the sour turn it gave my gut. Then when I figured out a way out, when Jason followed my lead, when he looked at me with complete confidence and said he knew he could pretend to turn on me, because he knew I would find us a way out. That unmitigated confidence in me, I don’t have words for what that means.

            So I talk, slowly at first. I tell him how I can’t stop thinking about that story of the river, and the people drowning.

            “Yeah, I know the one,” Jason said, “Alfred told it to me once.” He looks at me. “You know that’s not the end of the story right, Babybird?” I look up. “Yeah, the people start drowning because they keep falling in faster than the responders could pull them out, but then one responder stopped trying. You see, he realized that there was a problem up the river. So he left his post, and he walked up, and he realized the bridge across the river was broken. So he patched it. And viola! No more people falling in the river.” He flourished his hands as he spoke the last words, then lowered them and met my eyes once more. “You have to stop getting overwhelmed by the people in the river, Tim, and put that colossal brain of yours onto fixing the bridge.” I smile slightly. It is the tunnel vision again, I realize, just like before. Then Jason says the words that stick with me, well after he leaves. “If anyone can do it, you can.”


End file.
